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Monday, February 25, 2008

Bring our Troops Home?

Senator John McCain has said that it would be fine with him if our troops maintained a presence in Iraq for 100 years. Senator Hillary Clinton has lambasted of McCain's statement, and has stated that she'd start bringing our troops home from Iraq within 60 days of her election. Likewise, Senator Barack Obama would immediately begin bring our troops home.

I respectfully submit that those who are crying for immediate return haven't given much quality thought to the problem. Senators Clinton and Obama know little about peace and nothing at all about war. First of all, if you're going to bring troops home, fine. But be consistent. If we've been in Iraq too long, we should begin not there, but in the other places we continue to occupy after war. World War II ended over SIXTY YEARS AGO. We are still in Germany. We are still in Italy. We are still in Portugal. We are still in Japan. The Korean War is long over. We are still in South Korea. When do Senators Clinton and Obama propose to bring these troops home? Hmmm?

The answer is, of course, that we are not at war with these countries. Ours is a friendly presence purely for defensive purposes. Tcha!! And the answer to why we're not at war is that our parents weren't cowardly wimps who rolled over to beg for defeat with a change of administration. They stuck with it, through real hardship both in battle and at home, their reward was victory. In other words, we're not at war because we won.

McCain is the only contender in this race that gets it (and who has a realistic chance of being nominated). To make things better you have to win. And you will never win if you only cut and run, as both of the Democrat candidates propose. And when we win, we stay, not as a hostile occupying force, but as a welcome and valued partner. Those places in which we've maintained a presence for a long time are peaceful; they are friendly towards us and their neighbors; they enjoy bustling economies; respect human rights; have democratic rule; and a general improvement in their quality of life.

Here is an alphabetical list of some places our troops still occupy overseas:

Germany (since World War II)

Greenland (since 1953 - the Cold War)

Guam (since the Spanish-American War in 1898. That's before we got into the habit of giving our conquests back, so we just kept it.)

Italy (since 1954)

Japan (since World War II)

The Azores (Portugal. Since World War II)

Spain (since 1953 - the Cold War)

South Korea (since the Korean War)

Turkey (since 1951 - the Cold War)

United Kingdom (since World War II)

At least one of these occupations has lasted over 100 years. Several have lasted more than 60 years. I personally "occupied" a foreign country in exactly the same fashion that John McCain has in mind for post-war Iraq. Senators Obama and Clinton pretend this is a bad thing. That's because they're clueless, and they hope you are, too.